By Asish Samson

In alarming statement released by the Home office the number of terror related arrests made in Britain from past year till September 2017 has risen 54% in a dramatic upward shift. The Home office commented this was partly due to the arrests made after terror attacks.

In a disturbing trend 400 arrests were made since last year related to terror which includes a 77% rise in white suspects held. In an another shocking rise 58 of the suspects held were women, the highest in record since 2001 when the statistical record was started. As many as 3000 individuals are currently under investigation under any one time in about 500 live investigations while the bigger probe involves about 20,000 people!

These figures highlight the growing threat of Islamic terrorism in the UK in a culmination including but not limited to the Westminster Bridge attack, Manchester Arena attack, Parsons Green, Finsbury Park mosque and the London Bridge attack. The MI5 has stated it had prevented 9 attacks in the past year. Andrew Parker the head of the agency had in an ominous statement declared that the terror attacks were “in the highest tempo I’ve seen in my 34 year career” last October.

In the internet age online radicalization has been one of the biggest threats as it has produced home grown terror in a alarming rate. This can be seen clearly in the fact that almost 70% of those arrested have been identified as British citizens or British dual nationals. This highly concerning figure underlines the growing threat of radical Islamic terrorism in Europe as a whole. ISIS, particularly has been using websites and video to radicalize youth into terrorism and suicidal attacks. More than 800 people from the UK have gone to join ISIS in Iraq and Syria. Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson has taken a strong stance against them. He has stated that not a single citizen should be allowed back into the UK. “ A dead terrorist can’t cause any harm to Britain” he declared in interview.

Reports emerged yesterday that an extremist blatantly encouraged his followers to attack Prince George at his primary school while MI5 has prevented and arrested an extremist planning to assassinate Prime minister Theresa May at her official home in a suicide attack.

The US President Donald Trump had recently tweeted to Theresa May to watch out for Islamic terrorism in her own country in a pointed response. The recent discovery of the plan to assassinate her would surely leave her embarrassed but thankfully safe thanks to her intelligence agency. One thing apparent to the entire world now is that UK is under immense threat from Islamic terrorism. What measures they take and how they respond to it remains to be seen.